From a CZB publication, 1980:

It began in Hollywood

The first chapter in the CZB's history

(Translation by Bill Price)

When Harold Herman, reporter and photographer at Columbia Studios in Hollywood, returned to his job after four years of front-line action in the War, something extraordinary happened in his life: God called him - the God that Harold Herman didn't know. This kind of encounter between God and man is something that no one can hinder. This is the difference between the living God and the false gods of this world. The miracle that transformed his life took place late one Palm Sunday evening as he was sitting alone in his room, and it ended his tireless quest for the meaning of life.

But we are jumping ahead. Let's go back and trace the steps of this Hollywood photographer. When Harold Herman was back at his desk after the War, he appeared to have everything. Everyone there was his friend. As he himself put it:

"After four years of serving in the War, including battles in the Far East, I was glad to be back at my old office in the film studios. My co-workers, directors and stars such as Glenn Ford, Lucille Ball, Rosalind Russel and Rita Hayworth were very forthcoming and did their best to ease my transition from war to work. But there were still some problems... "

Serving in the War as a reporter and photographer, Harold Herman had been through a lot. He had taken part in a drama that neither the stage nor the silver screen would ever be able to depict. After experiencing the jungle wars in the Philippines and the ruins of Hiroshima after the atomic blast he had permanently lost his taste for artificial sensationalism. He would never be able to forget this grisly experience and escape from reality!

"One evening when I was going home from the studio", he said, "I realized that I was just like the Japanese and Chinese that I had met in the Orient. I was a man without hope, a lost soul!"

But the almighty God who had so often intervened in the affairs of men was now in the process of redeeming his soul. The Holy Spirit was working; a miraculous revelation occurred.

A friend at the studio, a true Christian, had a talk with him. She told him that Jesus Christ alone was the redeemer of mankind. She spoke unwaveringly and with conviction. Her job was not easy. In retrospect he tells about this friend:

"Almost daily I thank God for the grace and courage that He gave this woman whom I had known for a long time. She wept and prayed for my soul."

She opened up the Word of God to me with several Bible verses:

"It is appointed for men to die once, and after that comes the judgment." (Hebrews 9:27);

"For whoever calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved" (Romans 10:13).

"Although I had been born and raised in so-called Christian America, in a country where there is a church on nearly every street corner, I was now for the first time in my life hearing the gospel from the lips of a believer."

God had sent this woman. Before she left Harold Herman, she placed a New Testament in his hand.

It was on the evening of Palm Sunday. Harold Herman was sitting alone in his room, the Bible in one hand, and a burning cigarette in the other.

"I was reading the Bible; but what I was reading didn't say anything to me. Suddenly I thought: It isn't very respectful to smoke a cigarette while reading this holy book. - I put out the cigarette right away. It was the last one that I ever smoked. I began reading an Old Testament prophesy concerning Christ. It was Isaiah, chapter 53.

"He was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed.

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all."

The scripture that I held in my hand became alive to me; it spoke to me: "You can be saved right now, not based on that which you may do some day, but based on what Jesus Christ has already done for you on the cross."

At that moment the light of God found its way into my soul. The spiritual blindness that had kept my soul in darkness since my youth had been taken away. I suddenly knew that Jesus Christ was a true and living person."

Harold Herman went back into the studios a transformed man. God had a job for him there. People noticed that he no longer smoked and they asked him about it. It gave him great joy to be able to share with everyone he met what had happened with him.

"It didn't take long for my friends at Columbia Studios to notice the change that had taken place in me. With great enthusiasm I told my co-workers about my experience with Christ and the gospel of redemption. Soon I started noticing that I wasn't really suited for the work at the studio any more. I wanted to resign. The director of advertising listened to my testimony for half an hour and then wiped the tears from his eyes and begged me to stay on. I firmly believe that God allowed me to stay on at Columbia for the next nine months so that I could spread seeds of the Truth. A personal testimony is the best sermon!"

Ever since then Harold Herman has been preaching the gospel all over the world.

Three years later the Holy Spirit sent Harold Herman to Europe.

During the summer a large gospel tent was flown over to Berlin from Hamburg. In the meantime God had given Harold Herman many friends in America. They were happy to be able to help him in his task of winning people for Christ in Germany. With the help of German Christians the tent was set up at the border next to the Russian sector in the heart of Berlin. The former "front-line" photographer became a "front-line" evangelist, since in a manner of speaking Berlin was still in a state of war.

God sent Harold Herman into a significant juncture of world history. It was here that two opposing world views clashed head to head. The tent stood only one block from Potsdamer Platz where loudspeakers blared out the message of militant atheism over the streets into West Berlin. But at the same time the gospel tent loudspeakers were sending the message of Jesus Christ over the border into the Russian sector.

Harold Herman freely admitted that no experience in Hollywood would ever be able to compare with what happened in Berlin during the summer of 1952. The red flag was waving over the historic Brandenburg Gate. Hundreds of people from both sides of the Iron Curtain flocked to the tent to hear the gospel. These people who had been sobered by the War were eager to learn about the Truth. They were in the same situation as Harold Herman himself when he had returned from the War and felt inwardly stranded. The old idols had proven themselves to be false!

Early in 1953 Harold Herman and his team were preaching in the tent. The tension in Berlin was mounting. Something was in the air. On the morning of June 17th the anti-communist uprising broke out, and the clattering chains of "red" tanks as well as the chattering of machine guns were audible only a block away from the tent. Reacting instinctively, Harold Herman went out to capture this scene. From a tall pile of rubble he took - it is said - the only color photographs of this dramatic moment as hundreds of people fled for their lives in the face of advancing communist tanks. Troops sealed off the border and for the time being shut down the gospel meetings. The tent now stood in "no-man's land". On one side were the communist tanks and machine guns; on the other side were the West Berlin police who sealed off the area in order to stem further attacks. The only thing left for them to do was to find a new site for the tent. The uprising forced the brothers to set up the tent at a much better location. From then on it stood at the end of the Kurfürstendamm, at the famous Kaiser-Friedrich Memorial Church in the heart of free West Berlin. From 1953 to 1956 gospel tent meetings were held at this excellent location for about ten to fifteen weeks at a time. Large crowds of people took part in these meetings and thousands came forward to the altar to publicly accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. God performed wonderful miracles of healing and deliverance. Hundreds of believers received the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

These tent crusades in Berlin were almost as if they had taken place in the middle of "Times Square" in New York. You could ask almost anyone in the city where the tent was, and they could tell you. Reporters of the familiar "Illustrierte Berliner Zeitung", the "Illustrated Berlin Newspaper", stood on the tent podium and interviewed many of those who had been healed.

Helene Rhese, who had been completely blind, was spontaneously healed by God right in front of everyone. She showed the reporter a needle that she had threaded after her healing. Later her disability pension was revoked because the pension bureau was convinced that she had been permanently cured of her blindness. Others brought their x-rays to confirm miracles of healings that they had received through faith in God.

Attendance in Berlin surged after the Sunday newspaper came out with a full page of photographs of people that God had healed in the tent. The headlines were printed in large red letters: "Lahme gehen und Blinde sehen!", i.e., "The Lame Walk and the Blind See!"

Many blessings from the Berlin crusade have been preserved. Harold Herman helped raise up two churches. One church has a building near the subway entrance at Potsdamer Platz where the Red border guards had shut down the meetings on June 17, 1953. Today half of the congregation is trapped behind the communist Wall that divides Berlin and is only a hundred meters from the church's meeting hall. The second church was reconstructed only a half block away from the German Opera. The "Christian Center" was opened at a theater at Nollendorfplatz 5.

Since September 1964 Pastor Volkhard Spitzer has been heading up this steadily growing work of faith. In the early 1970's the news media reported on the remarkable work the church had among drug addicts. In the meantime the Berlin Christian Center has been having an enormous influence in all of German-speaking Europe. The following activities reflect the main thrust of the church: interdenominational congresses, evangelistic crusades in Germany and abroad, cassette and literature distribution, counselor training, church growth seminars for clergy, evangelism among foreigners, education on drug abuse through films and counseling, music and stage productions, childrens clubs, and home Bible meetings.

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